With a book and a scotch
by Scullyk
Summary: What happens a year after the season finale? One year after Emma marries Hook and everyone supposedly get's their happy beginnings? My one-shot ficlet that starts with Regina's not so happy beginning. SwanQueen as always. ;)


**Hey guys! This is my first one-shot. It's an idea that popped into my head a few weeks ago. I know I haven't finished, 'The quest for true happiness' yet but I've had a really difficult time finding my muse for that. I'm honestly so dissappointed at the way the season finally was "finalized" that I lost my mojo.**

 **In the meantime I hope you enjoy this little ficlet.**

With a book and a scotch.

Regina was sitting quietly in her study. She had taken to reading at night while sipping a scotch; an occurrence she'd like to say happened on occasion. Yet this was a habit she had developed for herself on the nights that she was alone since their "happy endings." A quiet pleasure she indulged in weekly now. Her mind still feeling the need to justify it as "deserving" if not to admit for a want or needing of it…for why would she?

She was happy. They all were.

A year had passed since they all got their happy endings or as Snow would call them, "happy beginnings." One whole year since she forgave Zelena, since Henry saved them from yet another curse, since the Black fairy had finally been stopped and since Emma had married him; the one-handed pirate. A whole year since their new beginnings and here she found herself reflecting on how nothing had actually changed.

Did she expect something to change? Storybrooke went on with everyone's daily lives as if they'd been living back in the curse for those 28 years. Not that she wished for any more drama, heaven's knew she had endured more than any human should for three lifetimes. But she still felt as though something was missing. Everything seemed so normal. Here she was on a Friday night sitting at home and reading, The Night's Watch, like a normal person.

Except they weren't all really normal people and somehow in this quiet sleepy town in Maine Regina had expected more happiness after their "happy beginnings." Instead she felt rewarded with just a life. Simple as that. Albeit, free of monsters, and evil and drama for a whole year but was this what happiness was meant to be? The daily nuances of breakfast, work, lunch, more work, dinner, family night, repeat. Save for the days there was no family night where she was alone curled up with a book and a scotch.

It was probably only she that felt this way anyhow. Everyone else appeared to be happy. And she mentally chided herself for not being more grateful. Despite her forced guilt she knew that deep inside she longed for more. She felt mundane, she felt unfulfilled and anticlimactic. The only times she would truly forget her boredom were the times she spent with her family and friends. But with Mary Margaret and Zelena still adjusting to motherhood and Henry having a life of his own this only really left Emma. Normally that thought wouldn't bring her sadness. But Emma had less and less time for her now. And the complexity of that friendship was one she did not care to explore tonight.

She's removed from her thoughts by a heavy knocking at her front door. She immediately looks at the clock over the mantle seeing that it's half past nine; certainly early enough for wakefulness but too late for visitor to be calling. As she walks towards the door panic begins to creep in at the thought that Henry could be in trouble. She wistfully opens the door with a worried look upon her face but it's not Henry.

Emma stands pale and cold on her front porch. She doesn't look her typical pale that she's taken on since meeting the pirate but she looks more gaunt than usual and she's clearly been crying. "He cheated on me."

And Regina can't believe it, well she can, but she certainly didn't expect it.

She finds herself holding out her arms for Emma to come in, instead Emma does something she's only done one other time before, exactly a year ago…she falls into Regina's arms in a crashing embrace. Except this time Emma is practically suffocating her instead of the tentative, shy gesture she previously showed and caught Regina completely off guard as she stumbles back.

Emma is crying into her shoulder without abandon and Regina feels her heart break for her best friend. "I'm so sorry Emma. Are you certain?"

"Seriously?" Emma pulls back and walks into the study standing before the warming fireplace.

"I saw him with some brothel chick from the Enchanted Forest, the one with the red hair."

Regina stares on blankly trying to let the information sink in while trying to keep at bay homicidal thoughts towards the pirate and his apparent wench.

"He was clearly drunk but he was also clearly fucking her."

Regina wants to reach out and pull her back in but she finds herself glued to the floor.

Emma is pacing now, anger poking its head though the onslaught of tears, "God! I mean how stupid could I have been? Who knows how long he's been fucking around on me! What kind of diseases could I possibly have because from the looks of it he wasn't wearing a God-damned rubber!"

"Emma, you're not stupid."

"Oh really? Because I should have known Regina, I should have realized right where this was headed. We've barely spoken to one another in the last several months. We interact but its somehow become disconnected and stoic. Grocery list at breakfast, then family plans for dinner. Work and obligations and life so mundane. TV and internet cruising but all so distant. We're not even affectionate with one another any more; not even when doing something as simple as sitting on the couch. I can't explain it but I knew it and I didn't even care to stop it."

She sits with an exacerbated cry.

Regina goes to her and finds herself kneeling in front of her, "Emma this is not your fault!" She takes Emma's rough hand in hers. When did her hands become so rough?

"You didn't cause this nor could you have prevented that lying sack of shit from…"

"I'm pregnant."

"What!?" Regina's eyes just look about to bulge out of their sockets.

"Don't make me say it again. Please."

Regina pushes down the bile that's risen up her throat, "Were you trying?"

"No!" Emma rises and nervously paces again.

"I mean not actively at least."

Regina finds herself with a death grip on the chair's cushion, her magic boiling beneath the surface. She opts to sit down on the chair before she incinerates it with her heat.

"We stopped using any protection around six months ago when things started getting bad." Emma doesn't know why she feels so ashamed and guilty at admitting this to Regina. Or maybe she knows exactly why but still, it doesn't stop the shame from blushing her cheeks.

"How um..." Emma notes how Regina can't make eye contact with her. "How far along are you? Does your mother know?"

"13 weeks? No, only you."

"Does he?" Regina says this more forcefully than she intended.

"Like I said only you." Regina looks up to pleading wet eyes and she realizes for once she doesn't have a clue as to how to comfort Emma. She feels her loathing towards the pirate escalate to levels she didn't remember possible. But the worse thing she feels is gloom. She feels an incredible dread take over her so much deeper than sadness. Emma was going to have another child. And it was guyliner's of all people.

But ever the Queen, ever the Mayor, ever the friend she composes herself and tries desperately to put her emotions and thoughts at bay. If not for Emma then for who else other than Henry, "What do you wish to do?"

"What do I wish to do? I wish I can make another wish. What I want I have denied myself for so long that it's caused a series of clearly catastrophic events."

"I don't understand."

Emma is now the one kneeling before Regina. "I don't care anymore about right and wrong, loyalty and fucking roles! Leave with me! Regina what I want is to go away with you. I just want to exist with no one else but you."

"Emma." It's Regina back in a state of shock and eyes welling up with unshed tears.

"I know what I'm asking for but please come with me. I'll do anything."

"Emma as tempting as an escape plan sounds you can't run away from your problems."

Emma reaches for her and takes her tightly into her arms. "It's not running away anymore. It's not about that. It's just that for once I want to do what I want with the person that I want."

Regina makes a gesture to pull away. She needs to look into Emma's eyes. Is this her Emma? So unhinged, so transparent? With no cryptic, longing gazes to mar the truth of their connection. No friendly coffee or dinner with Henry to keep each other in check and at arms length. Regina didn't see this coming. No, she definitely didn't see any of this coming and she was currently finding it difficult to breathe with the blonde in her arms.

"No please don't let go!" Emma cries out while tightening her hold. And Regina wants to cry out because she feels this is the moment that her life is spinning out of control and she's losing the battle to reign it back in.

"I love you so much," whispers Emma as Regina loses her last bit of tension and breathes in Emma's hair, a scent of lavender and camomile. She squeezes with all she has and breathes in Emma's essence.

Emma pulls back and looks into those caramel eyes that hold the world and she all at once. "I don't care anymore." She kisses Regina, rushed yet gentle enough to take pause and fill her with all the pent up passion of a thousand untold fairytales.

Regina holds Emma's face in both her hands as the blonde's arms pull her in to take what's been longed for an eternity over.

Regina doesn't know what was in her scotch this evening nor what curse will be discovered once this kiss is broken. The only thing she knows now is that she will not pull away from Emma Swan ever again.


End file.
